Predefined WordPress packages

I think the plugins one may need depends on the purpose of the site, so it’s hard to come up with a general, pre-defined set of plugins.

ok. But if we analyze stats of plugins usage — we see, that 10% WordPress blogs use 1 plugin, 9% — the other, 7% — the third, and 3% — all these plugins. So we can statistically define such sets of plugins, this will surely make life of starting bloggers easier.

Or maybe there can be created a download wizard, i.e. as for jQuery UI
https://jqueryui.com/download

But just because a plugin is downloaded, or even updated automatically, doesn’t mean it is being used.

@michael: You are right, but statiscally every 10% (for example) of users use such plugin. And for every plugin we will have use rate almost the same (maybe 1,5-2 times different, but it’s not the case). So if plugin is very popular (by downloads) it must be very popular by usage.

It’s also connected to the law of large numbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

The law you reference is irrelevant to this particular issue. The reason is simple…let’s say 1,000 people download and use WordPress and 100 of them use plugins. Just because the majority, or even the vast majority of the 100 who use plugins, download and use one particular plugin, doesn’t justify including that plugin for the other 90% of WP users.

The law of large numbers is not relevant when it’s applied to a fraction (small sample) of the total population of interest.

Law is relevant for any large fractions (large enough). If we speak about 10% or users which can use pre-defined sets of plugins – it’s a very big number. If you’d like to cover thousands of plugins with 10k- downloads (not top100), obviously you will be right – this idea won’t work for them. But I’m not talking about latter cases.

it’s a very big number.

In my example, it doesn’t matter how large the number is — 1,000 or 1,000,000,000 — the law is irrelevant to this example for numerous reasons. We’ll just agree to disagree here.

So, here is a concrete example of why what you are thinking is not going to work….

Login to your WP admin and go to Plugins/Add new/Popular…if you want to know what plugins people are using, what better list…agreed?

Now, here’s the list that shows in the first page:

1. All in One SEO Pack
2. Google XML Sitemaps
3. Contact Form 7
4. WPtouch iPhone Theme
5. GD Star Rating
6. Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button
7. Easy AdSense
8. Akismet
9. NextGEN Gallery
10. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
11. Viper’s Video Quicktags
12. Page Flip Image Gallery
13. Sociable
14. WP Super Cache
15. Platinum SEO Pack
16. Google Analyticator
17. WP-PageNavi
18. WordPress.com Stats
19. Google Analytics for WordPress
20. WP e-Commerce
21. HeadSpace2 SEO
22. WP Ajax Edit Comments
23. Subscribe2
24. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

I’ll use myself as an example…and I consider myself a very heavy WP user…I have several personal WP blogs and manage lots of WP blogs for others. Of the 24 plugins listed above, here are the ones I use on any of my blogs:

1. All in One SEO Pack
2. Contact Form 7
3. Akismet
4. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
5. Sociable
6. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

Of the 6 in the list I use, I only use one of them on all of my sites:

1. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

So, if this was the list you included in your package, I would be installing WP with 24 plugins and on some of my sites I would only be using 1 of them…I would be using 6 at most on any of my sites.

Why would I want to have all that unused code sitting on my site?

Hence, plugins should be installed if/when needed by the individual user and anyone interested in keeping their site lean, clean, and as protected from vulnerabilities as possible shouldn’t have unused plugins just sitting around.

Just my opinion…of course, nothing is stopping you from putting your “package” together…I don’t think you will have many takers…, but maybe I’m wrong…

At least with the WordPress plugin repository, all plugins are GPL so there is nothing to stop anyone from creating their own package.

ok, I understand the issue: number of coincedences among WP users will be quite small to provide any sufficient gain with packaged version, right?

You are right – this approach seems not to work. Maybe just large configuration list with top plugins divided into categories, so user can select from 10-20 categories and 100-200 plugins…

number of coincedences among WP users will be quite small to provide any sufficient gain with packaged version, right?

Exactly.

If the list of popular plugins I referenced above is a prioritized list (and I don’t know if this is true), then that would serve as a good resource to generate a “top plugins” list, which could be organized into categories. I think this could serve as a useful “resource” for people to scan, but maybe not a useful “package” to download and install.

+ I suppose ‘Will be good with…’ feature with plugin suggestion can make sense.

I also think such a resource must be fully automatized, and it won’t need any sufficient time to support.

This is something I am looking for as well. More along the lines of a specialized wordpress bundle. A complete package that includes the latest wordpress, along with relevant tried and tested plugins pre-integrated, and perhaps a relevant theme.

For instance, there could be a bundle for musicians and bands, that includes a collection of useful plugins that are configured to work together, and a theme that utilizes and orchestrates them all.

Does this exist somewhere? Thanks.